Governor Christie delaying another chance at school funding
With the recent controversy over the Race to the Top funding fresh in our minds, Governor Christie has another chance to obtain funding for our schools. This time, it is the Education Jobs Fund.
In August, Congress passed a law to provide stimulus money, including $268 million for New Jersey, in order to save jobs from education cuts. Unlike the Race to the Top, the application for these funds is relatively simple. The only requirement is that the Governor has to select one of two funding formulas. Unfortunately, the Governor cannot keep it simple and decided to try and pick choice 3 and make up a new funding formula.
Today is the deadline for New Jersey’s application. As of this writing, the U.S. Department of Education has posted the applications of 37 states and 3 territories, with New Jersey not among them. For those states who applied early, the distribution of money has already begun. Should the Governor fail to apply, the local districts will still receive money, but they will simply have to wait longer until the U.S. Department of Education distributes the funds.
The Governor may not agree with the purposes of this legislation, but the bottom line is that it passed with majorities in both houses of Congress and received the President’s signature. His delay in requesting this funding only hurts the children of this State.
UPDATE: New Jersey submitted an application dated September 8. It selects as the funding formula New Jersey's funding formula. Now we just need to see how quickly the State distributes the money to Woodbridge and other districts and how the aid is divided.
David Pinkowitz is a resident of Iselin.